


brooklyn's on fire (and fills our hearts with desire)

by Spacedog



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Blow Jobs, Face-Fucking, Firefighter Bucky Barnes, Firefighters, Gift Fic, M/M, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-16 09:24:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11825802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spacedog/pseuds/Spacedog
Summary: steve rogers sets his kitchen on fire, triggers a false alarm, goes out in public in his underwear, and charms a hot firefighter.and it's only monday.





	brooklyn's on fire (and fills our hearts with desire)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goodmanperfectsoldier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmanperfectsoldier/gifts).



> two-year friendiversary giftfic for [emily](http://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmanperfectsoldier), my best friend, writing partner, and co-author of several wonderful, sprawling, (as-of-now) unwritten fics. thanks for all the support, the love, and for being an incredible presence in my life. i literally cannot imagine how i could've gotten through these past two years without you.
> 
> based on the tumblr fic prompt: _“I’m a firefighter and you started a fire in your kitchen but you’re still flirting with me even though you’re not wearing pants and I’m carrying you down a ladder. Stop complimenting my muscles for fucks sake”_
> 
> i deviated from the prompt a little bit, but oh well. also: i did a fair amount of research for this fic, but i do recognize this is stretching the bounds of reality, a little. apologies for any inaccuracies, to any firefighters, ahead of time.

Steve Rogers was _not_ a good cook. More accurately, Steve Rogers wasn’t even competent at the very _act_ of cooking. But it wasn’t for lack of trying. Being a bad cook might have very well been predetermined; some genetic fate, passed down to him, from his mother, and her mother’s mother, and her mother’s mother before her. How the Rogers, née O’Connell line didn’t somewhere, somehow down the line, get exterminated as a result of their collective inability to cook was just a testament to the sheer _survivability_ of Steve’s maternal ancestors—a skill which, if today’s foray into the world of _feeding oneself like an adult_ were any indicator, Steve _damn well_ needed.

He’d followed the recipe perfectly. He’d even gone out of his way to make sure that everything was prepped before he threw everything in the pan. But either through sheer dumb luck or through sheer dumb moves on his part, Steve went and burnt his pan of Kraft Easy Chicken and Vegetable Stir-Fry. _Really_ burnt it. Burnt it to the degree of starting a small, but _totally_ manageable kitchen fire.

Which would have been fine, which _was_ fine, but still led to the ever-sensitive fire alarms blaring, loud and obnoxious, through his entire apartment building, even long after the _small but manageable_ kitchen fire was long gone. The new landlord might have been a whole lot better than the old guys, since he actually took the time to install high-tech fire detectors, but those cutting-edge, hyper-sensitive machines came at a practical cost. The new detectors were sensitive, yeah, but when they went off, they went off in the entire building, and wouldn’t shut off until a fire team came to check it out—even if the smoke was long gone. They were fancy, they were sensitive, but they were better in theory than in reality. As most good intentions were.

And so there Steve was, on a cloudy New York November afternoon: standing outside his apartment building with a bunch of pissed-off neighbors, half-freezing to death, wearing nothing but his awful American flag boxers, his slippers, and his favorite house shirt.

And it was only Monday.

“Steve Rogers?” asks a voice, and Steve spins around, perhaps too fast.

“Yeah, that’s—” Steve starts, only for his words to wither in his mouth when he gets a good look at who he’s talking to.

It’s a firefighter, but not _any_ firefighter. Standing in front of Steve is what must be the most handsome firefighter in New York City, sexy calendar boys included. He’s tall, at _least_ six-foot something, with sharp cheekbones, a strong jawline, and icy aquamarine eyes that rivaled the most picturesque blues on postcards of the Manhattan skyline. And what's more, even under all that equipment, even under all those layers of black and yellow, Steve can tell one thing for sure—this guy is _built._ He _knows_ it to be true.

Steve blinks, his mouth suddenly dry. “—uh.”

Hot Firefighter—and _God,_ if there’s any bright side to this awful mistake of a day, it’s the fact that Steve’s met an _actual_ hot New York City firefighter—looks concerned. Maybe he thinks that Steve is suffering carbon monoxide poisoning. Maybe that’s one of the symptoms: forgetful and tongue-tied, with all the blood rushing to one’s face.

“Sorry, uh—yeah. That’s. That’s me. Hi,” Steve says, looking up at Hot Firefighter, casually straightening his glasses. It was taking an inordinate amount of effort to keep it together—to play it cool, no pun intended. After all, he set his kitchen on fire. Not _terribly,_ but enough to set off the alarms, and enough to get the firefighters to arrive. They were already off to a rocky start.

“Hi. You called in, correct? And the fire was in your apartment?” Hot Firefighter asks, slowly, carefully. Perhaps trying to assess Steve’s metal state. An image flashes before Steve’s eyes, briefly: a misunderstanding, an ambulance, having to lie on a stretcher and explain to the EMTs that he wasn’t hurt in the non-incident that was his kitchen fire; no, rather, he was just _thirsty as hell._

“Uh—yeah. Uh. That was—that was me,” Steve says, quickly snapping back to reality, snapping back to focus on that cute dimple in the center of Hot Firefighter’s chin. He pushes up his thick-rimmed glasses, absentmindedly. At least his blush could feasibly be out of embarrassment.

“So—I’m going to— Wait, hang on, sorry,” Hot Firefighter says, trailing off mid-sentence, and for a second, Steve thinks he’s caught. “Are you cold? You look cold.”

Steve shrugs, trying not to let out a little sigh of relief. “I could go for one of those fancy emergency blankets, yeah.”

Hot Firefighter turns to look at the fire engine behind him. “Wilson! Got a blanket here I could give the guy?”

“Sorry, Barnes,” calls out another firefighter, “Gave 'em all out.”

That earns a little sigh from Hot Firefighter. He’s chewing his lip, making a little pout as he does. Steve shifts, knowing fully well that his boxers might be roomy, but they’re not going to hide _anything_ if his mind starts to wander.

“If I weren’t wearing all this gear, I’d give you—hang on,” he says, before jogging off to the engine. He comes back quickly, carrying what looks to be a soft-looking black jacket. He hands it to Steve unceremoniously, and Steve wastes no time putting it on.

Yeah, Hot Firefighter _had_ to be built, given how roomy his FDNY jacket was. Steve was practically _swimming_ in it.

“Thanks,” Steve says, zipping up the jacket. It’s warm, heavy, and smells like smoke and musk. Something ancient in the back of Steve’s brain, leftover from the small, scurrying mammals that were his evolutionary ancestors, makes him want to burrow into it.  

“Hey, it’s nothing,” Hot Firefighter—Barnes, apparently—says, flashing a hundred-watt smile. What a charmer. “There should be my business card in the pocket, too. In case you might need to call us again sometime, there’s our non-emergency number there, my email, and the address to the station.”

“Thanks,” Steve repeats, practically sighing the word. He buries his hands in the coat pockets, and he feels it—a palm-sized card, made of heavy cardstock, tucked into the right pocket, just as promised. Silence falls between them, one that feels comfortably detatched from any linear concept of time; it was defined, exclusively, by the silent, intimate connection between Mister "Hot Firefighter" Barnes and Steve. For the first time in a long time, those _once upon a time_ tales of true love felt like they made sense. In a fantasy world, Hot Firefighter would confess his love to Steve and they would both run off to his castle—or, more realistically, he would ask Steve to stay the night in the rent-controlled Brooklyn brownstone that a hot firefighter would probably call home.

And for a second, as Steve watches Hot Firefighter open his mouth to speak, Steve thinks, briefly, no matter how unrealistic, that would happen. His Monday had been wild enough as is. Steve’d set his kitchen on fire, and he _hadn’t_ destroyed his entire apartment. Going home to snuggle up with a hot firefighter was _not_ outside of the realm of possibility.

“So,” Hot Firefighter begins, taking a minute to choose his words. In spite of himself, Steve is _still_ so filled with hope, watching Hot Firefighter with almost undeserved anticipation. “The fire.”

Steve cringes. Of course. That’s why they were both speaking to one another, after all. That’s why Hot Firefighter was there. This is, real life, after all, Steve remembers sadly.

“Yeah?”

“How’d it start?” Hot Firefighter asks, his tone friendly and level and not accusatory at _all._ Not that it helps. Steve’s slippers suddenly become very interesting.  

“I was—uh. I was cooking,” Steve says. His crash back to reality was coming painful and coming fast, especially for someone who shouldn’t have had any expectations at all. “Or, you know. Trying to.”

Hot Firefighter nods. As if he _understands._ “First time cooking?”

“One of ‘em, yeah,” Steve says. Having to admit his dumb mistakes to such a cute boy would have been mortifying as is—but this cute boy was a _witness_ to Steve’s mistake. It was his _job_ to make sure Steve’s mistake hadn’t gotten out of hand. Steve wonders if anyone else has _ever_ felt this embarrassed. 

“Well, of all the kitchen fires I’ve seen, it’s definitely not the worst. It’s one of the better, really, given that the biggest problem is that being out here is _inconvenient._ That said, it looks like there’s a little bit of cosmetic damage on the stove, and you’ve definitely charred the hell outta that pot—but everything should be fine.”

If he was trying to make Steve feel better about quickly becoming the sworn enemy of his entire apartment building, well—it was only _kind of_ working.

“Even still, you’re probably going to have investigators in your apartment for the next few days,” Barnes explains, almost sounding apologetic. “Your apartment should be safe to go back to. Because this fire was so small, there’s no structural or electrical damage, there's nothing that could pose a real threat. But emotionally, I know a lot of people like to head over to a friend’s house after a fire. Just know that you’ll probably have people coming in and out of your apartment over the next few days.”

“Thanks,” Steve says, letting out a heavy sigh. What a crummy day. At least Hot Firefighter’s jacket was comfortable. He looks over Barnes’ shoulder to see one of his neighbors—Sharon, a night shift nurse—focused on them. Her usual friendly smile is a glare of daggers. Steve, guilty as sin, turns away. He deserves that. Maybe Hot Firefighter was strong enough to throw him into the Hudson. He would deserve that, too.

Steve’s expression must have betrayed his measured attempts to stay calm, because Hot Firefighter pats him on the shoulder, sympathetically. He’s wearing gloves—only _one_ glove, actually—and Steve can’t help but notice that Barnes’ hand is _so_ big. Curiosity gets the better of Steve, and he finds himself wondering what's the firefighting edge of having one glove. More urgently, he wonders _what else_ is big on Hot Firefighter. Shame, Rogers. Shame.

“Hey,” Barnes says, his voice gentle, “It’ll be alright. Everyone fucks up sometimes. But you pick up the pieces, and you find a way to move on.”

“Thanks. Just—” Steve starts. He sighs. ”This—this isn’t my first big mistake. But this is the first one to hurt other people. I fuck up and end up bleeding in a back alley ‘cause I misjudged my ability to take down some guy two times my size, that’s fine. That’s on me. But fucking up and ruining all my neighbors’ nights? I—I can’t take that.”

“Sorry—did you just say you’re running around starting back-alley fights?” Barnes asks, clearly looking over Steve. That question immediately makes Steve bristle. He thinks he can see a smile, or the beginnings of one, tugging at the corners of Hot Firefighter’s lips. His beautiful, plush lips.

“Yeah, why?” Steve asks, cocking an eyebrow. Almost subconsciously, he shifts his stance, squaring his shoulders, tilting up his chin—just slightly. Just so. “Don’t think a little guy like me can throw a punch?”

“No, no, no, it’s not that. It’s just,” Barnes starts, eyes wide. “You’re—you’ve got a really, uh—a really—”

It’s Steve’s turn to glare daggers, then. If Hot Firefighter was going to be a condescending asshole, first responder or not, Steve wasn’t going to let him off easy. No matter how big his biceps were under that ugly coat. Presumably.

“—it’s just that,” Barnes starts, still unsure; still clearly chewing over words in his mind. _Better choose them carefully, pretty boy._ His mouth opens, then closes, then opens again before he continues on: “You have a very, uh—you have very good—a good bone structure. A, uh—a nice face, I mean. It just—it looks like you’ve never been punched, because your face is, uh—very symmetrical. And, uh. Nice.”

All Steve can do is blink. Well, _that’s unexpected._

“I—” he stammers. Is this guy joking? What kind of answer is _that?_ Somehow, this very bad, no-good day of Steve’s was somehow getting weirder. Not better, and perhaps not entirely worse, but definitely weirder. “ _Excuse me_?”

That seemed to startle Barnes. All six-foot-something of him seemed to tense, as he quickly begins to backpedal.

“I’m sorry, that was—that was inappropriate. All of it. I shouldn’t have brought any of it up,” is Barnes’ apology. Steve had heard countless apologies in his lifetime: _I’m sorry for hitting you. I’m sorry for your loss, your father sounds like he was a great man. I’m sorry, but this just isn’t working out_. Many of those apologies, through one way or another, were coerced. Many of them were various shades of disingenuous, coerced or not. Apologies, Steve came to learn, were only as good as the person offering them.

This apology, though, this one felt true. This one felt genuine; it felt _real._ Despite his prickling at the question just minutes earlier, in that moment, Steve finds himself smiling, all that rage and frustration gone given the prospect of _Hot Firefighter, charmed by—maybe even flirting with!—one Steve Rogers,_ as if Barnes were some humble cosmic apology for the day’s chaos.

“Hang on, hang on. Are you _flirting with me_ , mister fireman?” he half-jokes, trying to look fun and flirty himself, draped in that giant jacket and his boxer shorts. It was an olive branch, dressed up a coy little half-smile; a détente with a wink.

Barnes blinks, wide and owl-like. He’s _blushing._ “I—uh—I mean—”

God, he was a _blusher._ Here was this a big, beautiful, boy, radiating handsomeness and natural charm until the second the tables were turned on him; it’s as if he forgot how to speak almost the second that he was flirted with. How cute was that.

“So, is this standard firefighting procedure now? Charming the grief-stricken homeowners?” Steve asks. There goes that blush again. “Because if it is, I _might_ just consider forgiving you for that last question.”

“Look, I’m—I’m really sorry about that one,” Barnes says, genuine as he was earlier.

“I’ll forgive you. _If_ you lemme ask you to get some coffee, or something. Otherwise, I _am_ gonna have to kick your ass.”

“I—” Barnes, Hot Firefighter, complicated, beautiful thing he is, starts saying.

“I mean, I’m not gonna force you to go with me. You can say no,” Steve adds, quickly. He shrugs, halfheartedly, trying not to lose the air of cool he’d cultivated, if he could even call it that. “I’d just prefer a chance to ask you out over more apologies.”

“So if I just give you the chance to ask me to coffee, you’re not gonna kick my ass?” Barnes asks, a little smile tugging at the the corners of his lips.

“Yep,” Steve says, “And don’t think I can’t. Might get my ass handed to me more often than not, but I’ve taken down guys bigger than you easy.”

That little smile blooms into a full-blown grin, bright and toothy and practically blinding. “Really?”

Steve nods. “And I’ll probably end up doing it again. I’m not a stranger to brawling in back alleys, like I said. So don’t think this threat is empty, _Firefighter Barnes._ ”  

There’s something fuzzy and soft in the way that Barnes looks at him, as if Steve is something lovely and precious; like he _didn’t_ just threaten to kick Bucky’s ass. Like he _didn’t_ just almost set his entire apartment building on fire. It’s odd. Not unwelcome. But odd.

“What?” Steve asks, once he realizes that that soft look that Barnes is giving him isn’t going away. 

“You’re wild, Steve Rogers. A spitfire. You know that?” Barnes says, somewhere behind excited and dreamy. Steve can all but _see_ the stars in his eyes. “But that’s good. I like that. I like myself a guy who can kick my ass.”

“ _Spitfire?”_ Steve asks, but he’s all but glowing, still. Hot Firefighter just gave him a nickname. Hot Firefighter _liked_ him enough to give him a nickname. Steve can’t stop smiling. And from the looks of it, neither can Barnes. “Really?”

“Hey,” Barnes says, with a little shrug. Shrugging all that equipment like it’s nothing. _Goddamn._ “I’m not a poet. It’s the best compliment I could come up with. You should just take it.”

“Yeah, sure. Sure,” Steve says, looking up at Barnes, all but batting his eyelashes. “So are you gonna give me the chance to ask you out, or do you want me to kick your ass?”

 “That’s a hard bargain you drive. But yes. Yes, you may ask me out.”

“Then, may I get coffee with you?”

“Mm—” Barnes hums, chewing his lower lip. He’s making a big show of thinking about it. “Maybe.”

Steve blinks at that, taking a few seconds to take a double-take. _What the fuck._ “Excuse me?”

“Hey, you _never_ made me agree to give you an answer,” Barnes says, his plush lips drawing out the syllables of _never_ , pulling and playing at those syllables like it’s saltwater taffy. “Fine print’s a _bitch_. Might wanna keep that in mind, for when the insurance guys come by.”

“You tease,” Steve hisses, half in a laugh. He wants to punch the guy. But he also wants to kiss him. Both. At the same time. Barnes would probably like it, from the way he was acting earlier. Steve might like it, too, but that was something he would come to terms at some other time.

“That’s what they say,” Barnes says, “But how about this—we meet halfway. You got my card. Why don’t you call me?”

“What," Steve asks, "Right now?”

Bucky shrugs. “If you want. I’d wait until I got home if I were you, though, but that’s just m—”

“Barnes!”

Seemingly remembering where he is, and what he’s supposed to be doing, Bucky jerks to attention, turning at the sound of his name.

“Yeah?” he calls out, less a question and more an affirmative; a confirmation, more than anything.

“Come on! We’ve gotta go!” Wilson calls out, making his way back to the cab of the firetruck. 

“Well, hey—I’ve gotta run,” Barnes says, turning all his attention back on Steve. His expression and voice go all soft the second he does.

“I know,” Steve says, “You should go. Gotta get back to work. Fires don’t put out themselves.”

“Yeah. Yeah, they don’t,” Bucky says, with a little laugh. He looks like he wants to say something, like he wants to make another move—like there’s something that he doesn’t want to leave unsaid. He’s so pretty, all Steve can do is watch him in awe, hoping that somehow, through some miracle of circumstance, it can be just them again—that they can extend that gentle, strange intimacy they had earlier.

"It was—uh. Nice talking. You’re really, really nice. I—”

He’s cut off then, his sentence splintering off at the ear-splitting, godawful _honk_ of the truck’s horn.

“Barnes! Come _on!”_

“Sorry, sorry!” Barnes yells to the cab, and he’s already running off. Steve’s heart aches, seeing him leave like that. “You got my card. Right?”

“Yup,” Steve says, taking the card out of the jacket pocket, showing off. Barnes is already crawling up into the cab of the truck, but his grin is warm as ever, even from that distance. Steve never fell in love this fast.

“See you later, Spitfire!” Barnes calls out of the window, shooting off a little salute. “Call me, okay? Don’t forget. And don’t set anything else on fire, alright?”

“I’ll try not to,” Steve replies, feeling warm and bubbly, determined to call Hot Firefighter the second he got back to his apartment—and the second he put on some pants.

**\---**

Steve _n’t_ call Hot Firefighter.

Instead, four days later, after work, he stops by Hot Firefigther’s firehouse in-person, armed with nothing but his charm and a muffin basket. And Hot Firefighter’s jacket, folded up neatly in his cluttered tote bag.

“What the fuck am I doing,” Steve thinks, staring down the station from across the street. He barely knew the guy, he didn’t call him, and now here he was, showing up at the guy’s place of work with his jacket and baked goods. On the way over, it seemed like the right thing to do. It was a thank you for the firefighters involved, and more selfishly, it was a nice way to ask the guy out again, without having to deal with the awkwardness of a phone call. But fifty feet from the firehouse, Steve felt himself hesitating. A voice not unlike Hot Firefighter’s rings loud in the back of his head— _This is a bad fucking idea, Rogers._

He’d had a lot of _bad fucking ideas_ in the past few weeks. His not-relationship with Hot Firefighter Barnes was entirely built off Steve’s _bad fucking ideas._ It wasn’t a good track record. And _even_ if given the opportunity—it wouldn’t be a good foundation for a relationship. _If_ Hot Firefighter would have him. 

But that last conversation they had—the spark was there. It was shared. It was _palpable._

Whatever. Steve’d already bought the muffin basket. And thanking heroes, as his mother always tried to drive home to him, was just the right thing to do. Even if they were just doing their jobs. Swallowing all his pride—and all his fears—Steve crosses the street, running head-on and reckless into this half-baked plan. Just as he always does.

The interior of the firehouse is not what Steve expected. For one, he didn’t expect the sheer _vastness_ to hit him. Firehouses, somehow, always looked so much smaller from the street. He didn’t expect the main entrance—not the big doors, but the little door, the one to the side—to lead to a tidy little lobby, either. Sitting at the front desk, working on what looks to be some paperwork, is a familiar fireman—not Barnes, but his colleague, another witness to Steve’s big mistake. 

 _Other Firefighter_ politely looks up from his work as soon as Steve approaches the desk. “Hi there. Can I help you?”  

“Hi, uh,” Steve says, the words feeling sticky and slow in his mouth, like molasses. “Is—uh, is Barnes here?”

“Yeah, he’s around. Want me to get him?”

Steve nods. “Yeah, that would be nice. Could you do that? Please?”

“I’ll text him. Most guys here would just yell, but I’m _polite_. I text people. He—should be out soon,” says Other Firefighter, just as he presses send. _Wilson,_ is his name, if Steve’s memory serves him correctly. “Hey. You’re the guy who set his kitchen on fire last week, aren’t you?”

Steve ducks his head. This was a bad, bad idea. He should have just swallowed his pride and called the guy. “Monday, actually. This Monday. But yeah—about that—I, uh. I wanted to drop this by. Kind of as a thank you. For all the trouble.”

“Muffins. _Nice,_ ” Wilson says brightly, the second that Steve puts the basket on the counter. He feels good, given how positively Wilson is reacting. “What kind’ve you got?”

“Blueberry, banana nut, double chocolate, apple crumble, and, uh—orange cranberry.” 

Wilson, in the middle of poking around the muffin basket, makes a face, somewhere between concerned and bemused. “You didn’t bake these yourself, did you?”

“Oh, Jesus, no,” Steve says, with a little nervous laugh, “I, uh. I bought them. Maximov Bakery and Café. Right between that Greek place and that used bookstore.”

“Oh, I love that place!” Wilson says, his eyes practically sparkling with joy. His hand hovers over an apple crumble muffin, but he does not move to take grab it. “I, uh—may I?”

Steve nods, pushing the basket ever-closer towards him. “Yeah, ’course. They’re for you, after all.”

Brimming with delight, Wilson grabs an apple crumble muffin, taking a big, hungry bite out of it. The sound he makes once he begins to chew is dripping with satisfaction. Steve, too, feels this. “Mmm. _Mmm_. Oh my God. That’s heaven.”

“Right? I could _survive_ off their muffins,” Steve says, his anxiety slowly, ever-slowly, coming to a stable flatline. Maybe, Steve thinks, he has nothing to worry about.

Which, of course, happens to be the moment that Barnes walks in.

“I heard something about muffins?” he asks, that warm, rough voice instantly recognizable.

“Barnes!” Wilson says, excitedly, wiping his mouth of apple crumble. Steve’s heart does flips, hearing that honey-rich voice again. Just when he thought that he’d gotten a hold of his heart rate, too.

“That’s me,” says Barnes, striding along in a damn-near skintight black FDNY t-shirt and tight blue jeans. Steve’s suspicions were confirmed—not only was Hot Firefighter built underneath all that gear, but he was _thick._ Thick as all get out, with pecs that Steve wanted to grab a handful of, thighs truly straining his jeans, and a right bicep almost as big as Steve’s head. His left bicep is, itself, something—a white-and-black prosthetic with the words _Stark Industries_ emblazoned down the outer edge of his forearm. It looked like something out of the future. Steve, suddenly aware of himself, suddenly aware of how rude he’s being, pulls his gaze up, internally chastising himself for staring—at the arm, especially, but at the _entirety_ of Hot Firefighter, Mister Barnes. It was a good thing that he was in a firehouse, because looking at Hot Firefighter in all his out-of-gear glory might very well make Steve _combust._  

“Uh,” Steve manages to get out, as he totally, guiltily, continues checking Bucky out, “I, uh—hi.”

“Steve Rogers,” Hot Firefighter— _Barnes—_ says, his voice soft, almost surprised. As if he wasn’t believing what he was seeing. “ _Spitfire_. I—hi. Good to see you again.”

“Good to—good to see you again, too,” Steve says with a lopsided grin. _God,_ those pecs were huge. Steve wanted to shove his face in them and have Barnes smother him to death.

“Better circumstances, though,” Wilson chimes in, pushing the basket of muffins towards Barnes. He eyes Barnes, and they share a moment, brotherly and unspoken, before Barnes goes back to picking out a muffin.

“Right—” Steve starts, suddenly not knowing what to do with his hands. “I, uh—I just wanted to say thank you. So, the muffins. I, uh, I promise I didn’t bake them myself. Really. I didn't.”

Barnes grins at Steve, showing off that amazing smile once more. “That’s good to know.”

Steve nods. Barnes bites into his muffin as voraciously as Wilson did, looking akin to a wolf biting down on the neck of its prey. It makes Steve feel hot and overexposed, thinking about teeth and necks and Bucky all at once, so before he does something he might regret, Steve settles on resting his hands on the strap of his tote bag, quickly catching a peek of Barnes’ jacket as he does.

“I—uh, I also wanted to return your jacket,” Steve adds, though it almost pains him to. He’d worn that jacket more times over the past few days than he was comfortable admitting.

“Oh,” Barnes says, his voice sharply dropping from light and casual to something almost inaudibly soft. He puts what carcass is left of the muffin down on the counter as he reaches over, and their fingers brush as Steve passes the jacket over to him. Steve is _positive_ he can feel _actual_ sparks as they touch. God, he was in so deep. “Thanks.”

Steve nods, swallowing. Not knowing what to do—but knowing, for sure, that he wasn’t ready to leave. Not yet. 

“Hey,” Barnes starts, sounding just about as unsure as Steve felt. “How ‘bout I take you on a tour of the station? Show you around a little bit?”

“Yeah, that’d be nice, uh—“

“Bucky,” Barnes says, and Steve _swears_ that he could see a blush. “My name is Bucky.”

 _Bucky._ He called himself _Bucky._ Bucky Barnes. If it were any other man, at any other time, Steve would’ve been more charmed by a house fire. But with this Hot Firefighter—with this Bucky—somehow, it’s perfect. 

**\---**

The tour of the station is fairly standard, and it’s what Steve had expected before he’d shown up. Bucky has clearly led tours of the station before, and he goes through the motions of it without missing a beat. Steve nods and hums and _aahs_ at the appropriate moments, and Bucky is appropriately friendly. But bubbling beneath that routine is the tension of _what next?,_ of how to deal with the baggage and potential for days earlier.

 “Hey, I’m sorry I didn’t call,” Steve says, eventually, interrupting Bucky in the middle of some explanation as to how the fire truck is cleaned. “I was—“

Nervous? A coward? Still struck with disbelief that someone so handsome would show even the slightest interest in _him_?

“—I was busy,” Steve lies. He shrugs. “You know.”

It takes a minute for Bucky to reply—he looks disoriented after being knocked off the usual tour track—but the second he comes back to himself, he smiles at Steve, looking no less genuine than he ever had.  

“It’s okay. You were busy,” Bucky says, seemingly none the wiser. Shame, shame, _shame,_ Rogers. “I’m just glad to see you again.”

“Me too,” Steve says, and he hopes that he doesn’t sound like he’s just saying it to say it. “I’m glad I was able to catch you.”

They smile at each other, settling into a silence, not the first in the short duration that was their not-relationship. 

“Hey, so,” Bucky starts, his words long and languid, as if to earn himself more time. Steve loved the way that his voice sounded. If Bucky needed to earn more time, he could drag his words as much as he liked. “I—uh. I know you said you were busy, so you didn’t call—but would you maybe wanna get a drink with me? I get to go home in about an half an hour, so, you know—I thought I’d ask.”

Hearing that proposal was like what Steve imagined hearing music for the first time must have been. His heart thrummed against his ribcage like a wild thing, and all he wanted to do was jump into Bucky’s arms then and there and ask him to personally walk him over to the bar, bridal-style.  

Instead, Steve chose to save himself some dignity, grinning just about as wide as his mouth would allow as he accepted Bucky’s offer. “Yeah! Yeah, I’d like that.”

“Great!” Bucky exclaims, sounding just as giddy as Steve feels. “Great, great, great. I—uh. Just gimme thirty more minutes. Then we can walk over there.”

“Great,” Steve echoes. “Great.”

Everything, for once, was completely, unironically great.

**\---**

The bar that Bucky takes Steve to is a firemen’s bar, about a block away from the station and as traditional _working-class Brooklyn bar_ as they come. It’s not fancy, by any means, but it feels friendly—or, at least, as much as a bar full of big, burly retired firefighters and their similarly macho friends _can_ feel to Steve. 

“So you know what _I_ do,” Bucky says, once they’ve settled into a quiet corner and they’ve got their drinks. Two beers for the both of them, some local fruit-infused brew that Bucky swears by. “What do you do?”

“A lotta things,” Steve says, with a laugh, “Right now, I work from home doing some IT shit—not my favorite job, but it pays well, and my boss, Nick, he really works with me. Even though he _can_ spring things on me, from time to time.”

“Are you happy doing it, at least?” Bucky asks.

“Happy as I could be doing IT,” Steve says, “What I really wanna do is art, though. I—uh. I make a little bit of money on the side doing art, actually. You know, freelancing.”

“No shit?” Barnes asks, those big blue eyes sparkling with interest, with genuine curiosity. 

“No shit,” Steve replies, taking a sip of his drink.

They fall into a quiet silence—brief, but buzzing with anticipatory energy. Now that he and Bucky are alone together, now that Steve is presented with an opportunity to really _be_ with Bucky, he has no idea what to say. He’s stunned, frozen at the potential that all this freedom offered. Like a deer in the headlights; like a bird facing the open sky for the first time.

And so the silence continues, and Steve, feeling hyperaware of himself, stares at the illustration on the beer label. He begins to pick at it, scraping the ink off the flimsy paper with his thumbnail, knowing fully well Bucky is watching him, carefully, as he does so.

“Hey,” Bucky says, suddenly pulling Steve out of his little act of harmless destruction, “Let’s do something fun.”

“Well, if it’s darts, I’m leaving,” Steve says with a little laugh, “I’m _very_ nearsighted, even with these things.”

“It’s not darts,” Bucky says, sounding conspiratorial. “It’s better.”

Steve bites. “What’s that?”

Bucky turns to him, almost shifting his entire body towards Steve. He leans in close as he makes his proposal. To outside observers—to the big, burly regulars of that working-class Brooklyn bar—they must look thick as thieves. “Twenty questions. Or something like it. So we can get to know one another better.”

Steve blinks at the suggestion, feeling—in spite of how quickly their relationship was unfolding—hesitant.  

“ _And_ we can make it a drinking game,” Bucky adds, quickly. “If you want.”

The proposal of a challenge loosens a knot in Steve’s chest, small as that knot might have been. “Oh? How do you propose that?”

Bucky shrugs. “You’re not willing to answer the question, you drink. Person who finishes his drink first pays for the next round. How’s that sound?”

Steve grins, wide and bright and—at least, in his own opinion—barely a _candle_ to Bucky’s dazzling smile.  “Sounds swell.”

He raises his beer bottle in a toast, and Bucky raises his, clinking them together. Like a pact, or like the ringing of a bell in a boxing ring. Bucky looks like he boxes. He looks like he would look _good_ boxing. 

“I’ll start. Let’s take it easy, for this first one,” Bucky says. He chews his lip, just for a second, before settling on a question. “Any siblings?”

Simple and low-stakes. Steve’s glad Bucky was the one to start. He's not sure he would have asked something as tame.

“Nope. Just me and my Ma. You?”

“I’m eldest of four,” Bucky replies.

“ _Four?_ ” Steve asks. He can’t imagine a family life that busy, that crowded, that _loud._ Growing up must have been very different for Bucky. Given the loneliness of his own childhood, Steve almost envies it. “Jesus Christ.”

“Hey, my folks’re Catholic, what can I say?” Bucky replies, laughing. As surprising as _one of four_ is, somehow, the fact that Bucky's got a relative boatload of siblings isn't all that surprising. Bucky carries himself like a family man. He’s probably the eldest. The eldest, or the very, very youngest.

“Hey, _my_ folks were Irish Catholic, too, and you don’t see four of _me_ running around.”

“Shame,” Bucky says, with a wink.

“Alright, alright. My turn,” Steve says, turning towards his drink, if only so that he doesn’t begin to break out into a full-body blush. He can already feel it blooming at the edge of his ears. “Uh. Last thing you stole.”

“Jesus, way to kick it up,” Bucky laughs, “Uh—do pens at the bank count?”

“Was it intentional? Was it more than two or three?” Steve asks. Bucky shakes his head. What a boy scout. Steve wanted to defile him. “If not, then no. It’s not stealing unless you intend to take it.”

“Oh, shit. Okay,” Bucky says. He takes a deep breath and continues on, but not before taking a sip of his beer. “Okay. It was a stop sign.”

“A _stop sign?”_ Steve repeats, in disbelief.

“Lemme tell you the story of it,” Bucky says, grinning around the lip of his bottle. “So Dugan, one of the guys at the firehouse, we’ve known each other since basic, right? We’re close. Like, he-visited-me-every-week-after-I-got-discharged close. One day, I go with him and some of our old army buddies and we go to his hometown. It’s this little fucking town in rural Massachusetts, out in the middle of _nowhere_ , and we’ve had a few more Boston lagers than we should have. It’s the night before his sister’s wedding. Someone comes up with the idea to steal a stop sign. Like we’re fucking teenagers. But we did it. Gave it to his sister as a wedding gift.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, we were originally gonna bring it back to the station, but there’s probably a law against that, and I doubt the chief would approve.”

“How responsible of you,” Steve jokes. Bucky shrugs, responding only with a little hum, before taking another sip of his beer. 

“Alright. Your turn to answer,” he says. He pauses before asking his question again, this time, his quiet, contemplative silence noticeably longer. “How about—weirdest shit you’ve ever drawn.”

Oh, _fuck_ no.

“Nope,” Steve says, shaking his head. “Nope. Not answering that one.”

“Come _on_!” Bucky whines—somehow charming, and not a _tiny_ bit undignified—as Steve knocks back a good half his drink. That beer wasn't _that_ great, no matter what Bucky said, but for not having to answer the most mortifying question in the world to the cutest guy who’d ever given him the time of day, it was worth it. 

Cute as he is though, Steve won’t budge. “I already drank.”

Bucky frowns at him, looking like some sad, small, soft thing. Steve was a man of strong resolve. He was a man who never backed down from a fight, who planted himself like a mighty oak beside the river of justice, and demanded, _No, you move._ He couldn’t be swayed so easily, even by a _gorgeous, funny, kinds firefighter boy._  

But _God_ , that pout, though.

“— _and_ they were drawn at a time when I was _real_ broke,” Steve adds on, quickly. Breaking down. Like the coward he was. God _dammit._ “Let’s move on.”

“Was it porn?” Bucky asks, looking like a kid in a candy store. Steve shouldn’t have indulged him, but the way that Bucky practically _bounces_ makes it worth it. “God, of _course_ it was porn. How weird was it, Rogers? Please, Steve, please, I _need_ to hear this story.”

“Nope. Nope, nope, you’re never hearing of it. No one is ever going to hear it. I was in college, I was broke, and that’s all you need to know,” Steve says. Sharing more, _far_ more than he’d ever shared with anyone. Bucky groans, but he’s smiling, anyway. “Now—uh. For you.”

“For me,” Bucky echoes.

 “What was—your college major?”

“Really?” Bucky asks, “That’s what you’re gonna go with? After _last thing you stole?_ ”

“Gotta keep you on your toes,” Steve says, taking another sip of his drink, just to punctuate the point.

“Physics,” Bucky answers, almost immediately. “Didn’t use it at _all._ ”

“And they say that physics majors are all awkward geeks. Way to break the stereotype,” Steve says, in a halfhearted attempt to flirt. Bucky laughs, shaking his head. “It’s your turn. Ask away.”

“Uh—” Bucky starts, “Favorite unpopular food.”

“Peeps,” Steve answers, without hesitation. Bucky’s reaction is visceral, a half-laugh, half-grimace of a noise that begins before Steve is even finished with the word. “What? You asked!”

“Peeps are _so gross,_ Rogers,” Bucky laughs, his face still scrunched up in disgust.

“They’re a fucking sugary delicacy, is what they are,” Steve says. Bucky’s laugh is infectious. Even as he’s trying to keep up a straight face, Steve can’t help but smile, too.

Bucky just shakes his head. “Peeps. Fucking _Peeps._ With taste like that, it’s no wonder you can’t cook.”

“Hey, excuse you, big guy, it’s people like _me_ keeping _you_ employed,” Steve jokes, shaking his bottle in Bucky’s direction. “If it weren’t for assholes like me, what’d you do all day? Make chili and pull kittens outta trees?”

“Hey, pulling kittens outta trees is _very_ serious, excuse you. Gotta go through a lotta rigorous training to get kittens outta trees,” Bucky says, “And don’t get me _started_ on full-grown cats.”

His face is deadly serious. For the briefest of seconds, Steve thinks that maybe, somehow, he’d really, accidentally insulted Bucky and his line of work. Steve begins to sputter, the _“I—”_ s and _“But—”_ s shriveling in his mouth, like something endlessly bitter and desert-dry. But just when Steve feels like he’s worked up enough fortitude to launch into an apology, Bucky smiles at him, small at first, then wide and playful, a continuation of their earlier banter. Realizing he’d been duped, Steve feels himself go into a full-face blush, something he knows for _sure_ is visible, even under those dim bar lights.

“—Jesus fucking Christ,” Steve says, before Bucky bursts out into giggles. Steve wants to punch him. He _does_ punch him. Playfully, and only once, but less because Bucky couldn’t handle it, and more because Bucky’s right bicep doesn’t give _at all._ “You jerk. You fucking _jerk_. Go take a drink for that.”

“Yes, sir,” Bucky says, obediently taking a sip of his drink. Steve shakes his head. Fucking jerk. Beautiful, clever fucking jerk.

“Okay. Next question,” Steve says, and oh. This one was a mood-changer. He feels heavy as soon as the question crosses his mind. He wants to change his question, but it slips out quickly, almost on accident, almost as if Steve is _trying_ to sabotage his own date. “Last— _real_ love.”

“Wow,” Bucky says, blinking, letting out a deep, heavy breath. Clearly not expecting such a question on a first date. Steve wants to kick himself. That settled it. He was going home alone. “Kinda heavy there.”

“Hey. Gotta keep you on your toes. Like I said,” Steve says, in an attempt at levity, his voice barely audible through the din of the bar. “Don’t have to say anything, not if you don’t wanna.”

“No, no, I do. His, uh. His name was Thomas, but we all called him Toro,” Bucky says, his voice going soft and low and sad, almost. Steve feels like he’d kicked a puppy. “He as an EMT out in Manhattan. Riley—Sam, Sam Wilson’s husband—introduced us at a party. We talked. Turns out, we went to elementary school together, before his parents moved to Long Beach. They wanted him to grow up outta the city, or something. We talked about that all night. Sam and Riley had to kick us out. And you know—after that, we just kept talking. Kept making excuses to see each other, to keep the conversation going. He’d call me, then I’d call him, then we’d go see movies and get dinner and go to museums, then, before I knew it, we were living together.”

Steve knows he's in no place to push, but he does. “What happened?”

“He wanted to move to Michigan. Got tired of New York life. And I didn’t. I couldn’t leave this city, not even for him,” Bucky says. He shrugs, taking a sip of his beer. “So that was that.”

A silence. A beat. A moment of vulnerability between the two of them, an unfolding of intimacy, all the result of Bucky letting himself be exposed. On any other date, Steve might have called it quits there. One of the cardinal sins of first dates, after all, was moping over one’s ex. But if anything, Steve feels _more_ for Bucky than he did before. And he tries to make that clear.  

“I’m sorry, Bucky.”

He shrugs.

“It’s alright. It was a while ago now. I’m mostly over it,” he says, with a little sip of his drink. “What about you?”

Because, of course. Steve couldn’t expect to drop that bombshell on the guy, he couldn’t expect to make him open up like that, without giving back.

“Well, uh—her name was Peggy. Met her in college, at a rally. A protest, actually. She was funny and sharp and smarter than anyone I’d ever met before. We were gonna get married. Or at least, we talked about it,” Steve says, with a sigh. “But, you know. Same thing with you. She got a job in London, and I didn’t wanna leave. I couldn’t leave. We’re still friends. I was the man of honor when she and her wife got married.”

“Wow. Well, it’s good you’re still friends,” Bucky says, not a hint of malice in his voice.

“Yeah. Yeah, it is,” Steve says, and he leaves it at that.

Another silence between them, this one hanging heavy in the air, maudlin. The noise level in the bar doesn’t change, but somehow, the entire place feels quieter. 

Bucky, this time, is the one to break the silence. “You wanna know how I got the arm?”

Steve turns towards Bucky as he answers. “Is that your question?”

As Steve studies Bucky’s face, taking in the contours and angles and sharp lines he’d been so enraptured with, he can see Bucky is wrestling with how he wants to answer. He looks pained, caught between two possible paths, before going unreadable for a second, then exhaling a laugh through his nose, shaking his head.  

“Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

“If you wanna share it,” Steve says. Carefully.

“So I was ex-military. Army. I was a sergeant, before I came here,” Bucky says, “Honorably discharged. I think you can put together why.”

It takes Steve a second to put together what Bucky is implying, but the second he does, realization comes upon him like the crashing of a wave. Like a hurricane. 

“Jesus,” Steve whispers, feeling his stomach drop. “I’m sorry.”

Bucky shrugs, taking a sip of his beer. “It was what it was.”

That makes Steve hurt, hearing Bucky dismiss it like that—it makes his insides fold into themselves and his heart clench in his chest. This was, Steve would admit, perhaps too much for a first date. But Steve doesn’t feel awkward about it. He doesn’t feel like he needed an exit strategy; instead, he feels like he’s being given a chance to learn more about who Bucky is; to peer deeper into the depths of Bucky’s soul.

And besides—it wasn’t like he was getting all of this dumped on him unprompted. Steve was the one who started it. Even if he _was_ feeling awkward and needing a way out, _he_ was the one who pushed.

“So anyway. Stark Industries, after their CEO decided to stop making weapons, launched a program to get free high-end prosthetics to people who wanted to _do good_ ,” Bucky explains. The irony of it all doesn’t seem lost on him, from the way he curls his tone around those last few words. “I turned in an application, wrote about how after coming back from the front, all I wanted to do was be a firefighter, and a week or two later, I get a call from Tony Stark himself.”

“Holy shit,” Steve says, wide-eyed and astounded.

“Yeah,” Bucky says with a soft little laugh, “That’s pretty much what I said.”

“So then what?” Steve asks, picking at the label of his bottle.

“Funny story,” Bucky says, “See, I thought after getting a letter from Stark, they were just going to send me an arm in the mail and I’d be good to start training. It was a lot more than that. First, they had me come in for an interview with a few people. It was the most nerve-wracking thing I’d gone through in a long time. Then they sent me home. Made me wait a few days—said they’d call me by the end of the week. I was sweating the entire time. Literally sweating. And it was the middle of July, too! It was—it was really gross.”

Steve tries to think of Bucky sweating bullets as he waits for Stark Industries’ call. Frankly, he doesn’t think it looks disgusting at all, but then again, Bucky probably doesn’t appreciate the image of himself all sweaty and glistening the way Steve does.

“They finally _did_ call me, though. Took my measurements, told me about the process—all the risks, the surgery, the PT—and made me sign a shit-ton of forms. They let me go home again, and before I knew it, I was being prepped for surgery to get my new arm,” Bucky continues on, with a little shrug, almost as if it’s an afterthought. He might have been calm, almost casual about the process behind getting his prosthetic, but Steve had a feeling that there was more to it than Bucky would let on—not that he would push about it. Not that he could bring himself to push, even if he wanted to. “Did the PT thing, did all my check-ins, and a few months later, I was taking the CPAT and on my way to becoming a firefighter.”

“Wow,” Steve says, “Wow. That’s—that’s a lot.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, “Sorry.”

“No, no, I—" Steve starts, thinking over his words carefully, not wanting to sound condescending. He knows what that's like. Eventually, he settles on something neutral, but genuine: "Thank you for sharing that with me.”

Bucky smiles at him, and Steve feels guilty for not sharing with him—he feels like he should reach into himself, somewhere deep and unknown, and hand Bucky something roughly the same. It’s then that Steve remembers his tote bag, sitting at his side, and almost the second he remembers it, Steve already feels compelled to offer a little bit of himself to Bucky, a sharing of secrets; an act of emotional exchange.

Steve, with his tote bag sitting beside him, decides that he could show Bucky his sketchbook.

If he’s anything, Steve Rogers is _fiercely_ defensive of his art. This intensely protective attitude goes hand-in-hand with the boulder-sized chip that Steve wears proudly on his shoulder; it’s the result of schoolyard bullies, of clients who wanted to exploit his labor, of people who didn’t see legitimacy in what he did. But he doesn’t feel any of that usual trepidation as he considers the thought of offering his sketchbook to Bucky, especially after Bucky opened up like he had. Steve feels like he could trust Bucky. He feels like he could show Bucky those pages; that maybe, one day, Steve could bare his soul.

So out of nowhere, surprising himself, even, he blurts out—

“You, uh—you wanna see? My sketchbook, I mean.”

“Seriously?” Bucky asks, the pretense of their game falling by the wayside. He’s looking at like he’d brought him a puppy. _God,_ that boy burned curious, and he burned bright. Steve has to work hard to keep things casual.

“Yeah,” he says, with a smile. “Why not?”

“I would love to see your sketchbook,” is what Bucky says back. He’s smiling at him. He’s smiling at him, all big and bright, as if Steve is the only person in the bar. It’s so unusual to have someone looking at him like that. He feels like he might wilt under the gentle warmth of Bucky’s gaze.

Steve digs deep in his tote bag, quickly bypassing piles of receipts and loose pens and library books overdue by _God knows however many_ weeks, pulling out his sketchbook—a thick, hardbound pad, its cover and edges still in pristine condition, give or take a tear or crease or two.

He’s still nervous when he hands it over to Bucky, gently, like handing over his heart. But Bucky soon puts those fears to rest as he looks through the sketchbook, flipping through well-worn pages with a care, with a delicate touch, that Steve almost envies _._ His breath hitches, as Bucky turns the page to figure drawings, to nude bodies, to sensual, erotic sketches, drawings that Steve forgot he’d done; sketches he thought he would only ever keep to himself.

Well, _fuck_. 

“This is all really good,” Bucky murmurs, as he flips, eyes lingering over the pages, perhaps a half-second longer than they should have. If Bucky were to ask, Steve wouldn’t be able to explain himself. He can’t even look him in the eye. Instead, Steve just hums, a neutral agreement, sipping down his beer in big, unsatisfying gulps. Showing Bucky his sketchbook was a mistake. Going to a bar with him was a mistake. _All of this_ was a mistake. Steve mulls over the possibility of faking his own death, of getting out of town and riding the rails, taking on odd jobs in small towns until he found a place far enough from this Brooklyn fireman bar that he could settle down without risk of someone he knows finding him. Maybe he’d even grow a beard.

Somewhere along the line, while Steve was making plans to live a semi-nomadic life out of sheer embarrassment, Bucky had finished flipping through his sketchbook. It’s only when Steve notices Bucky sliding his sketchbook back that he comes back to reality.

“Thank you. For letting me look at that,” Bucky says, his voice solemn, but gentle—as if they’d just shared secrets; as if they’d just opened up on all the traumas and tragedies of their lives.

Hell. They essentially _have._ Steve thinks so, at least.

“I—I don’t got a sketchbook. I can barely draw a circle. But I know that what’s in there’s gotta mean a lot to you. So thank you for showing it to me.”

“You’re welcome,” Steve says, plainly. Because it’s really all he _can_ say.

“You’re very talented.”

“Thank you,” Steve says again, blushing.

“I mean it,” Bucky says, “You could have a show in a museum.”

“Jeez, Bucky,” Steve says, laughing, “You say that to all the guys?”

“Nope,” Bucky replies, low, as if to share a secret. Steve can feel his heart begin to flutter at their proximity. “Just you.”

“I—uh,” Steve sputters nervously, as Bucky pulls away, taking another sip of his beer. “We should—uh. You wanna get another round? I’ll buy this round. You won, anyway.”

He shakes his bottle in front of Bucky—almost holding it up to the light—as proof. As a concession, as an admission— _You’ve won. Claim your prize._

“Nah, we should probably head back. It’s not gonna be long before some other guys start showing up. If you think I’m bad, _they’re_ nothing but trouble,” Bucky says with a laugh. He looks over Steve, quickly before ducking his head, adding quickly, “And, I, uh. I don’t wanna keep you.”

That careful thoughtfulness makes Steve glow, warming him up like a kiss from the sun. 

“There are worse things I could do with my night than spend it with you,” he says, fully earnest.

Bucky smiles at him, and Steve smiles back. He doesn’t want to leave Bucky, but he sure as hell wants to leave the bar, now that Bucky wants to. As guilty as it makes him feel, he doesn’t like the idea of sharing Bucky with his firemen buddies—at least, not tonight.  

“Come on,” Bucky says, leaving a few bills on the counter. “I’ll walk with you.”  

The walk back from the bar feels, somehow, much shorter than the walk there, even if it was only a little over a block from the firehouse. Steve doesn’t even feel the usual sting of Brooklyn in November, even though he could hardly say he’s bundled up. Maybe it’s the buzz from the beer, or maybe it’s just the residual warmth from getting to know Bucky that kept him warm. Whatever it might have been, Steve felt like the universe was finally forgiving him for his mistakes, and showing him what pure, unfiltered joy felt like; or, at the very least, it was starting to make up for the fact that he’d got dealt such a bad lot to begin with.  

“Hey,” Steve says, slowing to a stop in front of the firehouse, right across the street from the stairs to his platform, where he was standing so awkwardly and anxiously just hours before. “Thanks for tonight. I—I had a really good time.”

“Yeah?” Bucky asks, sounding just on the edge of unsure. “I’m glad.”

Steve knows that he should leave—that he should give Bucky a peck on the cheek and tell him goodnight. That he should promise to call him again for another night like this soon. But instead, he blurts out—

“Hey. Maybe I’m remembering the tour wrong, but you had a coffeemaker at the station, right?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, slowly. His face, again, unreadable. Steve doesn’t know what he’s doing—and he’s not sure Bucky does, either. “You wanna stop in for a cup?”

“If you’ll have me,” Steve replies. He didn’t know what he was going to do, how the night was going to unfold, once Bucky took him inside. Maybe they were both just working on instinct. Maybe they were both just taking their chances, hoping the other would lead the way. Maybe neither of them knew what either of them was going to do next. Maybe they would both find out.

Bucky leads him inside, linking their fingers together, the touch light—barely-there—into the station’s tight little communal kitchen. It’s bright and well lived-in, and Bucky moves on instinct as he rinses out the coffeepot. Steve watches him, engrossed, once more, in his entirety—in the sweeping way he moves, in the gentle care of his hands, in the way that his muscles shift and bulge underneath his clothes.

Steve slides up next to Bucky, bumping his hip against his, earning a soft, gentle laugh and the reappearance of that incredible smile. Once he sticks the coffeepot in its place and sets it to brew, once both hands are free, Steve grabs him, linking their fingers together and pulling him in close.

“Oh,” Bucky says, a soft little noise. His lips are parted, just so, and from the way he’s looking down at Steve, he’s looking—staring, enraptured—at Steve’s lips. And Steve—just as lost in Bucky—looks up at him, focused on those brilliant blue eyes of his, and wraps his arms around Bucky’s neck, slowly, ever-slowly, pulling him in closer, close enough for their foreheads to be touching.

“Hey,” Steve says, after a moment—a second, or an eternity. Time went all fuzzy, when he was with Bucky. “Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot,” is what Bucky replies.  

“Do you think,” Steve murmurs, playing with Bucky’s hair, twirling those loose little strands around his long, careful fingers. “Do you think we’re moving a little fast?”

Bucky breathes, low—almost shuddering. “Yeah. Yeah, Spitfire. I do.”

“Can I ask you another question?” Steve asks, quieter this time. Fully aware of the possibility—however slim—that he wouldn’t like the answer he would get.

“Of course,” Bucky says, with a nod.

“Does it bother you? Us going a little fast, I mean.”

“To tell the truth, Spitfire,” Bucky starts, and Steve freezes on instinct. Part of him hates himself, for even asking the question. Part of him—a bitter, angry part of him that he _hated—_ was telling him, _you knew this was too good to be true. This is where he lets you down easy._ He wants to pull away from Bucky, to protect what was left of that bright little ball of warmth from earlier, to guard himself and his heart in the easiest, simplest way possible. 

But it’s too late for that. When Bucky continues, having left Steve hanging for however long, Steve knows—it’s too late to do anything but brace for impact.

 “To tell the truth,” Bucky repeats, flicking his gaze from Steve’s lips, to his eyes, just briefly. “It doesn’t.”

Steve _swears_ , for just a second, he can feel his heart stop.

“Yeah?” he asks, his voice coming out far from confident. He realized he sounded unsure; fragile.

“Yeah, yeah. I don’t mind at all,” Bucky replies, resting his big hands on Steve’s waist. “Can I ask you a question though?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, “Yeah, okay.”

Bucky takes a deep breath before he speaks again, and he squeezes Steve, gently, as if to anchor himself to the moment. “Can I kiss you?”

Steve nods, just slightly—not enough to break contact with Bucky—but enough to offer a wordless affirmative. And Bucky—looking like Steve had just given him the world, leans in, slowly. Deliberately. As if approaching a wild thing; as if coming in too quickly would scare Steve off. Steve pushes himself towards Bucky, and their lips touch, soft, tenuous at first, then slowly delving deeper, ever-deeper, as they fall into one another.

As they kiss—soft, exploratory, at first, then turning, passionate, heated, leaving Steve wanting _more_ —he tries to memorize the way that Bucky tastes, the way that he shifts underneath Steve’s touch. He burns that moment into his brain, locking it away to keep with him, preserved in amber, safe and guarded, forever. Bucky tastes like that night’s beer—hoppy, fruity, and sour-sweet—combined with something else, something Steve can’t put his finger on; a sharpness that was all _Bucky_. He chases that taste, running his tongue along Bucky’s, nipping at his plush bottom lip, savoring that closeness until they have to break to breathe.  

“Hey—” Bucky murmurs, “Do you think we—”

“What are you asking, Barnes?” Steve asks, his fingers skimming the edges of Bucky’s shirt.

Bucky swallows, letting out a slow, steady breath. “Let’s—go to the—let’s go somewhere—somewhere not—“

Steve, fully realizing what that means, nods, offering Bucky his hand. “Take me somewhere private.”

There were _very_ few private places in the station, but they managed to find a place for themselves—a sparsely-furnished conference room with no windows, and more importantly, no people occupying it.

“Sorry I couldn’t get us a place any more romantic,” Bucky says, quickly locking the door behind them.

“I would’ve settled for the kitchen, if we had to,” Steve murmurs, crowding into Bucky’s space, looking up at him through long eyelashes. Bucky looks at Steve with those big, blue eyes, pupils completely blown. He runs a thumb along Steve’s jaw, his touch gentle, barely there—before resting the pad of his thumb on Steve’s lower lip. Without breaking eye contact, Steve takes Bucky’s thumb in his mouth, slowly—painfully slowly—sucking it and pulling away, earning from Bucky, a hitched breath, dark, _needy_ eyes, and a satisfying shudder.

Steve takes that as an invitation to sink to his knees, Bucky frantically unbuckling his belt as he does so. Every inch of his body is tense, as Steve watches Bucky, waiting with coiled-up energy and bated breath for Bucky to pull out his cock. Slowly, far too slowly for Steve, Bucky pulls his red boxer briefs down just enough to reveal his cock, and—oh.

 _Oh._  

“Jesus Christ, Bucky,” Steve breathes, because in front of him is, without a doubt and by any measure, the biggest dick he’s ever seen.

When Steve looks up at Bucky, he looks bashful. Steve can’t be sure of it, given that the conference room is dark, and it’s a bad angle, but he likes to think that Bucky is blushing. He’s almost _sure_ of it. The boy _was_ a blusher, after all. Without hesitation, Steve takes Bucky’s dick in his hand, earning a choked-off little gasp.

“Damn, Bucky. _Damn,_ ” Steve says, palming at Bucky’s dick, considering the nice weight of it, just for a second. He’s excited and intimidated at the prospect of blowing Bucky, even more so than before. He’s already working his jaw, mentally preparing himself for Bucky. “Think you’re gonna fucking choke me, if I’m not careful.”

The noise Bucky makes is _obscene._ If he wasn’t blushing earlier, he _has_ to be now.

Steve wastes no time after that, pressing his lips against the head of Bucky’s cock, parting his lips, making something akin to a kiss. On his knees, lips pressed against Bucky’s tip, just so, Steve feels reverent, damn-near religious. But that equivalence doesn’t last long, disappearing the second that Steve takes Bucky in his mouth, slow and steady.

Bucky lets out a soft breath as Steve begins to bob his head in brief, gentle intervals, all but whining when Steve breaks from rhythm to lick at Bucky, running his tongue down the underside of him, all the way from base to tip, only taking Bucky in his mouth when he’s near begging.

Steve repeats this cycle—work Bucky up, suck him off, then pull away, tease him with little kitten-licks—earning more and more desperate noises from Bucky each time. It works Steve up, those low, breathy little _oh’s_ and _ah’s._ He desperately craves touch, desperately wants nothing more than for Bucky to be touching _him—_ but they’re neither in the place nor the position to be doing that. Not yet.

Instead, with his mouth occupied with Bucky’s dick, and his left hand massaging Bucky’s balls, Steve frantically works his belt with his right hand, trying to relieve his need for some—any—sort of touch. It’s not graceful, trying to multitask like that. Not in the slightest. But he manages. He manages, with some effort, to ungracefully undo his zipper and pull his shorts down just enough to finally, finally, _finally_ get his dick out. As he moves his right hand, rolling his hips against his palm in time with the bob of his head on Bucky’s dick, he looks up, making eye contact with Bucky, wordlessly telegraphing _this is what you do to me,_ with a flick of his wrist and a _look._

“Jesus, Stevie,” Bucky says, his voice low. Steve hums against Bucky’s dick, earning him another soft little moan. He usually hated that nickname. He usually hated being referred to as _Stevie._ He hated the way cruel, hateful men wielded it like a weapon to make Steve feel insignificant and small. But the way Bucky spoke was different. His _Stevie_ was full of gentleness, of wonder, of _awe._

And it shoots straight to Steve’s dick. 

He hums, his mouth too busy and too full with Bucky’s dick to offer any real _thank you._ Given Bucky’s reaction, the way he shuddered, the sudden jerk of his hips sharp and wanting, Steve doesn’t think he minds. He shifts, taking Bucky deeper—almost to the base—breathing heavy and hard as he does. 

“Fuck—” Bucky hisses, threading his fingers through Steve’s hair. Something fuzzy goes off in Steve’s brain, and he moves, taking Bucky deeper, further into his throat. “ _Fuck._ ” 

That’s when Bucky begins to move, rolling his hips against Steve’s mouth. Steve tries to keep up with him, moving his hips against his hand, palming his dick in time with Bucky’s rough, erratic thrusts against his throat. He can barely think to breathe, between his own dick and Bucky fucking his mouth. All he can think about is the hot, fuzzy feeling pooling in the pit of his stomach with each thrust, and the way that Bucky fills him up. All he can think about is how it would feel to have that big dick inside of him, how _amazing_ it would feel if Bucky bent him over one of those firehouse conference tables, and fucked him senseless.

Steve feels Bucky tugging at his hair, sending pinprick tingles all along his scalp and knocking his glasses askew. He doesn’t mind. It feels good; better than good—and all Steve can do is moan against Bucky’s huge length, palming his right hand desperately against his own aching cock.

“Fuck— _fuck_ ,” Bucky murmurs, and he’s gone, jerking his hips up sharply, shooting off rough and hot in Steve’s throat. Steve doesn’t last much longer, Bucky’s load setting him over the edge, coming into his own hand, hot and sticky and desperate.

As he pulls off Bucky’s dick, Steve, fully expecting to leave a slick _pop_ and maybe a suave one-liner, instead, makes a complete mess. He tried—he really did try to keep himself together, but he couldn’t. It’d been a _long_ time since he did this, and a _long_ night regardless, so there he was, sans pride, dribbling come down his chin and the front of his shirt.

“Fuck, fuck, I’m sorry,” Bucky starts, tucking his dick back into his pants. As soon as he’s got his zipper back up, he helps Steve off his knees, all but plopping him into a chair. “God. God, I’m so sorry.”

“S’okay,” is what Steve says, throaty and hoarse. He has to pause for a second and admire the roughness of his voice. It’s sexy, even if he looks like a trainwreck.

“Here, I—uh,” Bucky starts, looking around the room for something—anything—to remedy the situation. Nothing but the flag. As much as he would be down to do it, Steve’s pretty sure that using the stars and stripes to wipe come off one’s face is a federal offense, and he wasn’t up for being arrested for giving sloppy head.

Eventually, Bucky, looking defeated, lets out a long sigh, and pulls that tight black shirt off, tossing it to Steve—leaving his bare chest out in all its wonderful glory.

Steve’s Ma loved talking about holiness, about faith, about how she knew that heaven and all its angels were real. Looking at Bucky standing there, all thick and toned like some sort of Brooklyn Adonis, was Steve’s version of holy revelation; standing there with Bucky, all to himself, was proof positive to Steve that somewhere, out in the chaos of the universe, there existed a loving God.

“Uh,” Steve manages, eyes fixed on Bucky’s chest.

“You can use your shirt to uh—wipe up,” Bucky says, thankfully not acknowledging the fact that Steve was staring. “Then put this on. Me walking through the station shirtless is weird, but you walking around with my spunk dripping down your face is worse.”

“Right, right,” Steve says, quickly unbuttoning his shirt. If he didn’t know any better, he would think Bucky was staring, too.

Steve manages to get himself moderately cleaned up, balling up his shirt carefully and tucking it into his tote bag. It wouldn’t have been the dirtiest thing that happened to that bag. When he pulls on Bucky’s shirt, it’s comfy. Roomy. Almost comically large on him. He fantasizes about falling asleep in that shirt, about waking up in the morning and padding over to the kitchen, where a similarly-shirtless Bucky is making breakfast.

“You look cute,” says the _actual_ Bucky, tearing Steve from his embarrassingly-domestic fantasy. Steve blushes, and tucks the shirt into his pants, feeling shy somehow, despite having _aggressively_ flirted with Bucky just a few days earlier; despite having _just_ wiped Bucky’s come from his mouth.

“Yeah, well—takes one to know one,” Steve counters. Oof. Good thing Bucky was easily charmed.

They fall into a comfortable silence there, enjoying each other’s presence. It isn’t like their first few—the loadedness is gone. The electrons spinning around them don’t buzz with potential, with questions of _what can we be?_ , and the noise of the universe seems to dim. But it’s no less comfortable. Steve adjusts his glasses carefully, and Bucky, big, beautiful, gentle Bucky, just smiles at him, as if Steve were the most charming thing in the world. 

“I should go,” Steve says, eventually, breaking that silence. “You should, too. Your day off, and all that.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, sounding a little disappointed. He crosses his arms, and Steve is _rapt_ at the way his pecs smoosh together. “Hey, hang on. Before you go. Lemme—gimme a second. Don’t go anywhere.”

Bucky is gone in a flash, leaving Steve in the darkened conference room with nothing but his bag, the clothes on his back, and his own thoughts. It’s a dangerous thing to do, leaving a curious thing like Steve unattended, but Bucky is back before he knows it, now completely clothed and with a familiar swath of fabric in his hand. 

Steve blinks, once he realizes what it is—the jacket, _Bucky’s_ jacket—the one he’d left in Steve’s care, all those days before.

“This is—” Steve starts, “Buck. Bucky, I—”

“Don’t want you getting cold,” Bucky says, draping it over Steve’s shoulders. “You can give it back next time.”

Steve blinks, the full realization of what Bucky is saying comes slowly, like a comfortable weight settling itself on his shoulders.

“So—so does this mean I get to see you again?” Steve asks, wrapped up in Bucky’s jacket, feeling comfortable and _toasty_.

“If it’s anything like our first meeting? God, I hope not,” he laughs. Steve meekly punches him in the right arm. It doesn’t give. _God._ “But yes. I would definitely like to see you again. I wouldn’t—I’m not that kind of guy to, you know. Come and go.”

Steve snorts at that stupid little pun, and Bucky, serious as he’s trying to make it, cracks a smile, too. God, what a big, beautiful nerd. Steve is falling far too fast for this one.

“Well,” Steve says, playing with the edge of Bucky’s jacket, the tips of his fingers barely reaching the sleeves. “Can I kiss you goodbye?”

“I would like nothing more than that,” Bucky murmurs, pressing up close in Steve’s personal space. Steve smiles, big and warm, and he stretches, standing up on his tiptoes to kiss Bucky—to reach up towards those plush, perfect lips. Nothing major—not like a climactic movie star kiss. Just a peck. A spark, if anything. But loaded with the hint of _more to come._ Loaded with that same promise— _let’s see each other again._

They pull away, briefly, grinning at each other, neither really wanting to pull away. Bucky tucks a strand of hair behind his ear. Steve adjusts his glasses. Not out of need, this time. Just out of habit.

“I, uh—” Steve says, knowing fully well if he didn’t go then, he wouldn’t _ever_ leave. “Yeah. I’m—I’m gonna. I’m gonna go.” 

“You’ll remember to call me this time?” Bucky asks.

Steve grins. “As if I would ever forget.”

Bucky smiles, bright and warm and _bashful,_ almost. God, someone so big and so pretty shouldn’t have _ever_ looked bashful, especially because of Steve, but there he was, looking at Steve like he was the greatest thing in the world. It sends Steve’s stomach into flips.

“Well,” Bucky says, “See you later, Spitfire.”

Steve turns to look at Bucky as he leaves, sending off a little salute, and his reply slips smooth and easy and warm—like cider, like the coziness of Bucky's jacket, like _familiarity_ —off his tongue:

“See you later, _hot stuff_.”

**Author's Note:**

> just a few things: 
> 
> \- thanks to [swagnushammersmith](http://archiveofourown.org/users/swagnushammersmith) for beta reading!! your notes really helped sharpen this fic and i couldn't have comfortably published it without you. thank you, thank you, thank you. 
> 
> \- title comes from one of my favorite new york city/steve rogers songs, ["brooklyn's on fire" by nicole atkins](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvy9_JuRlBM). expect it to be referenced in another fic. or every one of my fics. whichever.
> 
> \- sarah rogers was never given a maiden name in comics or MCU canon, so i picked one for her. [here's the website i plucked that info from, in case you’re wanting to look more into it](http://www.ireland-information.com/heraldichall/irishsurnames.htm).
> 
> \- while the notion of steve burning a dinner that bad might seem a stretch, keep in mind that literally two and a half weeks before posting this, i burnt a pot of farro so badly that there are still stains on the bottom of the pot. i might not have triggered a false fire alarm, but my apartment stank of smoke for the next few days like no one's business. 
> 
> \- the beer that steve and bucky have at the bar is a local raspberry brew, based off emily's favorite beer. sorry steve isn't too into it at first, but he comes around!! 
> 
> \- if you don’t think i rewatched the sex and the city episode where samantha bangs a brooklyn firefighter for this fic you put far too much faith into me
> 
> visit [emily](http://softbrobucky.tumblr.com/) or [myself](http://softpunkbucky.tumblr.com/) on tumblr. and be sure to read [her half of our fic swap](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11955747/chapters/27032814)!!
> 
> and thanks again for all the love and support you've provided over the years, em. it really means the world to me. i hope that i have done as much for you, meant as much for you, and been there as much for you as you have for me, all this time, and if not, i hope that i can make that right. you've left me a better person than i was beforehand. here's to more years ahead of us. : >


End file.
